Guest column: Tempest over city manager tuition request

Ellen Smith

Monday evening’s City Council agenda has drawn a lot more attention from media and citizens than usual—likely a result of the agenda having been published almost a week earlier than usual.

The item drawing the most attention (from the News Sentinel, Oak Ridge Today, the Observer, and the Oak Ridger, as well as a lot of negative comment from citizens)—whether to reimburse City Manager Mark Watson’s tuition for his Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee—came a surprise to me because it had been only lightly discussed by the Council committee that considered the city manager’s performance evaluation—and we had not voted on it, much less made a recommendation to the full Council.

Because of the number of questions and comments I’ve gotten on this item, I’m presenting my viewpoint on the tuition tempest here for everyone’s benefit.

This was my fifth year to sit on a committee to evaluate one of the Council’s two employees (city manager and city attorney), so the process seemed pretty routine.

When our committee (Dave Mosby, Chuck Hope, and I) met in early June, we had all digested the ratings and comments submitted by individual Council members and we moved quickly to discussing the business of compensation and contract term. The compensation recommendation of “same percentage increase as the rest of the staff’ (1.5 percent) seemed pretty easy to make.

It took a bit more discussion before we decided to recommend a two-year contract extension (to August 2016) to reflect Council members’ general satisfaction with the manager—but with the awareness (always expressed with a smile and a wink) that the only true guarantee that any Oak Ridge city manager has is good only for the term of the severance pay (currently about eight months) that he would get if he were fired.

The city manager had an additional request for us to discuss—he asked to be allowed to take the dollar value of his “emergency leave” with him when he leaves city employment (whenever that happens). We asked questions about what emergency leave means in the city system (it’s complicated), how it is accumulated (that’s complicated, too), what the policy is on accumulated emergency leave for rank-and-file employees who leave city employment (a retiring employee can use the accumulated leave to “buy” more credit toward their pension, which is provided by the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System), and what was done when the last city manager (Jim O’Connor) left the city (he received the dollar value of his accumulated emergency leave).

After a lot of information-gathering and discussion, the committee decided that it would be equitable to amend Mark Watson’s contract to let him receive the dollar value of the accumulated emergency leave.

One member of the committee (Chuck Hope) expressed a desire to provide something more for the manager, at which point Mark Watson offered the suggestion that the city could pay his tuition.

Personnel director Penny Sissom told us that the city used to have a tuition reimbursement program for employees, but that program was cut out of the budget some years ago (before my time on Council).

I recall saying that in some future budget, Council might want to re-establish a tuition reimbursement program that would be available to all employees for education programs that are judged to benefit the city, and if this was done the manager might qualify.

Recent tight budgets have not included any leeway for this type of thing, but particularly with a recent influx of younger employees, I can see how it could have long-term benefits to the city government. I definitely don’t like the idea of providing this benefit to the top-level manager unless it is also offered to lower-paid employees who are less able to afford UT tuition on their own.

I don’t specifically recall the comments made by the others regarding Mark’s tuition request, but I do recall that no one introduced a motion to consider adding an education reimbursement provision to the manager’s contract. We did agree that this request should be mentioned in the committee minutes.

I went off to Alaska on vacation for the latter part of June, so I missed the City Council’s June 25 work session. Apparently something that somebody said at that work session gave Mark the idea that Council might support the request for tuition reimbursement, so he drew up a proposed addition to the contract that would pay his tuition—and that would require him to reimburse the city from his emergency leave “pot” for any course that he completed less than three years before leaving city employment. I had no idea this was coming, so I was surprised when I starting getting questions about it.

There’s no denying that Mark’s request shows initiative on his part (not altogether different from initiative that he shows on behalf of the city’s interests), but I can’t support this request when the City isn’t offering the same kind of opportunity to other city employees.

As it happens, the emergency leave “deal” that the committee recommended is a larger financial benefit than the proposed tuition reimbursement that we didn’t recommend (a city memo says that the manager’s current emergency leave balance is worth more than $30,000 and it will grow in the future, while his tuition for about 12 credits in one year reportedly would be only about $6,000). I suppose one reason why the tuition proposal (and not the emergency leave proposal) is the subject of the tempest is that emergency leave is so complicated, but pretty much everybody understands tuition.

It’s surprises like this one that make City Council membership so doggone interesting!

This column was originally published at http://ellensmith.org/blog/ and used with Smith’s permission.

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Robert Humphries

We don’t need to be providing tuition for anyone in the city. Period. They have their salaries, just like the rest of us. They can choose to do with those salaries as they wish, which might include the good idea of extending their education.

But, that is THEIR business, not the city’s business.

Even the actions regarding “merit raises” leaves me wanting. These things tend to be “routine” and “automatic”….Gosh, we have to give him “something”. No we don’t! I have often mentioned to council and written letters to editors about the subject of ROI (return on investment). We should concentrate on REDUCING expenses. Although I know I can’t stop it, we need to stop getting FEDERAL funds for everything we (meaning city government, not the citizens) want to do. We need to look at our income and expenses, and live life accordingly. It is wrong, in my opinion to fund our projects with monies taken from those who don’t even live here.

City governments’ need to concern themselves with providing the best possible services as the least possible cost, for the citizens of the city. City governments are, after all, “public servants”, established for the benefit of the CITIZENS.
RH
http://annegarciagarland.com Anne Garcia Garland

Having not been in the committee meeting on manager evaluation, I appreciate the insight into its proceedings. During the work session, the idea of tuition reimbursement was surfaced to the surprise of most of us. One council member’s response was that it sounded like paying for the manager’s preparation for his next post. Much more time was spent trying to understand what the reasoning behind letting him be reimbursed for accumulated emergency leave was and what its effects would be. It would constitute granting an exception to the manager in employee benefits which he might find damaging to the regard in which his staff hold him.
- B Smith
  
  You know, if you think about it, the city of Yuma, Arizona, paid for Mark Watson’s preparation for his position as city manager of Oak Ridge. And whatever he did before he was city manager in Yuma prepared him for that job. The simple fact of the matter is that most ambitious people use their current jobs as preparation for their next ones. And the history of the tenure of city managers in Oak Ridge would tend to make one think that preparing for the next job is an imperative,
  
  I think there are good reasons to dismiss the concept of tuition reimbursement but consideration that we are paying for “preparation for his next post” is a specious concern.
http://ellensmith.org/blog Ellen Smith

The city manager has notified Council that he is withdrawing his request for tuition reimbursement.
Peter Scheffler

I think it’s good that he withdrew the request for tuition reimbursement. I think it’s a good benefit but should be available to all employees, and the education should be directly related to present or expected job duties.
Sarah Johnson

“I definitely don’t like the idea of providing this benefit to the top-level manager unless it is also offered to lower-paid employees who are less able to afford UT tuition on their own.”
I agree with you there Ms. Smith.